A

Abundance

Abundance is the state in which there is more than enough. Although material goods are not yet in surplus worldwide, certain areas of the materially developed world are experiencing this phenomenon.

Abundance is the opposite of scarcity, one of the core assumptions of classical capitalist and communist economics. When people are assured that their basic needs are met, new elements of human psychology arise, such as altruism, allowing them to work for free to help others, such as by organizing give-away shops. Scarcity is a central concept in economics. ... In economics, a capitalist is someone who owns capital, presumably within the economic system of capitalism. ... Communism - Wikipedia /**/ @import /w/skins-1. ... U.S. Economic Calendar Economics at the Open Directory Project Economics textbooks on Wikibooks The Economists Economics A-Z Institutions and organizations Bureau of Labor Statistics - from the American Labor Department Center for Economic and Policy Research (USA) National Bureau of Economic Research (USA) - Economics material from the organization... Psychology (Classical Greek: psyche = soul or mind, logos = study of) is an academic and applied field involving the study of behaviour, mind and thought and the underlying neurological bases of behaviour. ... Altruism is either a practice or habit (in the view of many, a virtue) as well as an ethical doctrine. ... Give-away shops, freeshops, or free stores are second-hand stores that are starting to appear in Northern European towns and cities, especially in the Netherlands and Germany. ...

Allocation

The allocation of production and consumption is a key element of any model of economics. Consumption is the using up of a resource. ... U.S. Economic Calendar Economics at the Open Directory Project Economics textbooks on Wikibooks The Economists Economics A-Z Institutions and organizations Bureau of Labor Statistics - from the American Labor Department Center for Economic and Policy Research (USA) National Bureau of Economic Research (USA) - Economics material from the organization...

The most common allocation mechanisms include centralised mechanisms as in communism and corporations, or market based mechanisms as in capitalism. This article is about communism as a form of society and as a popular movement. ... A corporation is a legal entity (distinct from a natural person) that often has similar rights in law to those of a Civil law systems may refer to corporations as moral persons; they may also go by the name AS (anonymous society) or something similar, depending on language (see below). ... Street markets such as this one in Rue Mouffetard, Paris are still common in France. ... In common usage capitalism refers to an economic system in which all or most of the means of production are privately owned and operated, and where investment and the production, distribution and prices of commodities (goods and services) are determined by the influence of supply and demand in a free...

Market based mechanisms include positive and negative feedback loops to mismatches in demand and supply, but ignore a large number of parameters representing social and moral values and empirical behaviour, which most empirical sociology and psychology research show to be very resistant to quantification as monetary values. Street markets such as this one in Rue Mouffetard, Paris are still common in France. ... Positive feedback is a type of feedback. ... Negative feedback is a type of feedback, during which a system responds so as to reverse the direction of change. ... The supply and demand model describes how prices vary as a result of a balance between product availability at each price (supply) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand). ... The supply and demand model describes how prices vary as a result of a balance between product availability at each price (supply) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand). ... Value is a term that expresses the concept of worth in general, and it is thought to be connected to reasons for certain practices, policies, or actions. ... Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions or reactions of an object or organism, usually in relation to the environment. ... Social interactions of people and their consequences are the subject of sociology studies. ... Psychology (Classical Greek: psyche = soul or mind, logos = study of) is an academic and applied field involving the study of behaviour, mind and thought and the underlying neurological bases of behaviour. ...

Alternative allocation mechanisms, which could incorporate non-monetary values by the means of rational, informed debate and decision making, and could be both decentralised and participatory, and could involve localised positive and negative feedback loops where groups of people active in their roles of either producers or consumers would make general proposals regarding production or consumption respectively. In the participatory economics model, the positive and negative feedback are provided by a third group of people which would iterate between the proposals of the producers' and consumers' groups. Other alternative allocation mechanisms most likely exist, since the parameter space has a large number of dimensions. Decision making is the cognitive process of selecting a course of action from among multiple alternatives. ... Positive feedback is a type of feedback. ... Negative feedback is a type of feedback, during which a system responds so as to reverse the direction of change. ... Participatory economics, or parecon is a participatory economic system proposed as an alternative to contemporary capitalism and also an alternative to centrally planned socialism or coordinatorism, that emerged from the work of radical theorist Michael Albert and that of radical economist Robin Hahnel, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s. ...

Austerity

Austerity is a term that describes a policy where nations reduce living standards, curtail development projects, and generally shift the revenue stream out of the physical economy, in order to satisfy the demands of creditors. Typically, private banks, or institutions like the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.), will demand an "austerity policy" from a national government, as a condition for re-financing loans that are coming due. This might involve cutting food or fuel subsidies, underfunding public infrastructure (transport, education, health care, water and power management), or rationing. When these demands are made by the I.M.F., they are known as I.M.F. conditionalities. The flag of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is the international organization entrusted with overseeing the global financial system by monitoring foreign exchange rates and balance of payments, as well as offering technical and financial assistance when asked. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Rationing is the controlled distribution of resources and scarce goods or services: it restricts how much people are allowed to buy or consume. ...

Automatic stabilizer

An automatic stabilizer is a government policy of taxes and transfer payments that stabilize GDP without requiring policy-makers to take explicit action. Unemployment benefit is an example of an automatic stabilizer. A tax is a compulsory charge or other levy imposed on an individual or a legal entity by a state or a functional equivalent of a state (e. ... In political science and economics, a transfer payment is a payment of money from a government or any other organization to an individual, a group or another order of government for which no good or service is directly required in return. ... Unemployment benefits are sums of money given to the unemployed by the government or a compulsory para-governmental insurance system. ...

B

Backflows

Backflows is the term used in to define the return of workers to the countries from which they originally migrated. In classical economics and all micro-economics labour is one of three factors of production, the others being land and capital. ... This article describes a type of political entity. ... Migration occurs when living things move from one biome to another. ...

Barter

Main article: Barter

Barter is a form of trade where goods or services are exchanged for a certain amount of other goods or services, i. ...

Basic economic problem

The Earth's resources are are scare yet our wants are unlimited. Economics is the study of how resources will be allocated to solve this "basic economic problem".

C

Catallactics

Catallactics is the praxeological theory of the way the market economy reaches exchange ratios and prices. Praxeology is the science of human action. ... The term market economy describes an economy where goods and services are traded. ... In economics and business, the price is the assigned numerical monetary value of a good, service or asset. ...

It aims to analyse all actions based on monetary calculation and trace the formation of prices back to the point where an economic actor makes his or her choices. It explains market prices as they are and not as they should be. The laws of catallactics are not value judgments, but aim to be exact, objective and of universal validity. Market price is an economic concept with commonplace familiarity; it is the price that a good or service is offered at, or will fetch, in the marketplace; it is of interest mainly in the study of microeconomics. ... Bold text A value judgment is a judgment of the rightness or wrongness of something based on a particular set of values or on a particular value system. ...

It was first used extensively by the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. Ludwig von Mises (September 29, 1881 - October 10, 1973), a notable economist and social philosopher, was born Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary (today Lviv, Ukraine), the son of Arthur von Mises, a railroad engineer and civil servant, and Adele von Mises, born Adele Landau. ...

Friedrich Hayek used the term Catallaxy to describe a market economy. He was unhappy with the usage of the word "economy", feeling that the Latin root of the word - which translates as "household management" - implied that economic agents in a market economy possessed shared goals. Friedrich Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek (May 8, 1899 in Vienna – March 23, 1992 in Freiburg) was an economist and social scientist of the Austrian School, noted for his defense of liberal democracy and free-market capitalism against a rising tide of socialist and collectivist thought in the mid-20th... The term market economy describes an economy where goods and services are traded. ...

Commoditization

Commoditization is a term from both economics and the social sciences which is used to describe the process by which a good becomes saleable in the market. Commoditization can be considered as positive, in that it makes the good available to a broader audience, or as a negative, implying the cheapening of a class of "goods" in the philosophical sense. U.S. Economic Calendar Economics at the Open Directory Project Economics textbooks on Wikibooks The Economists Economics A-Z Institutions and organizations Bureau of Labor Statistics - from the American Labor Department Center for Economic and Policy Research (USA) National Bureau of Economic Research (USA) - Economics material from the organization... Terms like SOSE (Studies of Society & the Environment) not only refer to social sciences but also studies of the environment. ... Street markets such as this one in Rue Mouffetard, Paris are still common in France. ...

D

Diminishing marginal utility

Diminishing marginal utility occurs when the more of an item is had, the less utlity it has for the haver. For example, let's say that one has purchased a car. The utility gained from the car is the ability to go from one city to the next much faster than without the car. Let's say that one has purchased another car. The utility gained from the additional car has no more increased the ability to go from one city to the next than the first car purchased. Thus, the marginal utility has been diminished.

Double Coincidence of Wants

In a barter (i.e. non-monetary) system of exchange, an exchange between two parties can only occur if both parties desire what the other is willing to give up. For example, a person with wishing to exchange bricks for wheat must find another person willing to exchange wheat for bricks. This necessary condition for barter trade is known as the double coincidence of wants. Barter is a form of trade where goods or services are exchanged for a certain amount of other goods or services, i. ... Money Money is any marketable good or token used by a society as a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. ...

Historically, the difficulty in satisfying the double coincidence of wants has been a major impetus in the development of money. Money Money is any marketable good or token used by a society as a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. ...